Digital Marketing Reads: Volume 27

Here’s the latest instalment of Digital Marketing Reads, a roundup of some of the more interesting articles we’ve read lately in the digital marketing world. Missed the last one? Read Volume 26.

Google won’t index sites that do not work on mobile devices after July 5

We’ve known for a long time the importance of making websites mobile-friendly. With so many Google searches now done on a phone, it would be a big oversight not to optimise a site for mobile.

Google got serious about mobile in 2024, announcing that after 5 July 2024 it would no longer index sites that don’t work on mobile devices.

Note that they said “don’t work”, not “don’t look good”. So as long as a website exists and loads when viewed on a mobile device, it can still be indexed by Google. Still, if you need help getting your website to work well on a phone, contact our Mildura web design and SEO team and we’ll help you out. Our technical SEO work covers mobile checks too.

The Rise Of Reddit: How You Can Leverage The Platform That’s Revolutionizing Search

You may have noticed Reddit threads appearing more often in Google searches. This isn’t random: according to this article, it has a lot to do with Google paying Reddit $60M to access its content and use it for search and AI purposes.

It follows, then, that getting your brand or business more visibility across relevant subreddits could help get your website more clicks from Google searches.

How do you do this? Search Engine Journal hosted a live presentation on 12 June 2024 on how to engage with communities on Reddit without being too spammy with your self-promotion. You can find the details on the event page.

Google AI Overviews visibility drops, only shows for 15% of queries

You may have noticed AI at the top of some search results (called AI Overviews). That’s Google’s AI attempting to answer your search query without you needing to scroll further down the page or click on any of the results. According to this article, at one point AI Overviews appeared 84% of the time.

Google had some fine-tuning to do, because there were numerous occasions where the answers it provided were… not quite right. The article notes a run of incorrect AI-generated responses, some of them widely shared.

After the backlash and blunders, AI Overviews appeared in only 15% of Google search results when the article was written. We expected this number to rise as Google fine-tuned its AI and improved the quality of its answers.

Rock Solid Marketing helps businesses in Mildura and across Sunraysia with SEO and web design. Contact us to talk about your website or your search plan.